


Damaged

by Arukou



Series: Tumblr Archive [46]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7558339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arukou/pseuds/Arukou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone in the hospital, Tony receives an unexpected visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damaged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [windscryer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/windscryer/gifts).



> Originally posted [here](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/post/146894629316/for-samurljackson-who-requested-cuddling).

Tony didn’t like hospitals and he especially didn’t like hospitals that weren’t located in Avengers headquarters where he could at least pester JARVIS or his teammates until someone let him work or came down to entertain him. But no. DC hospital. No Avengers. No JARVIS. No nothing but the most boring television known to man. If Tony was going to be saddled with a TV and a sub-par smartphone courtesy of the government (because in the hustle and bustle of people panicking around him, someone had crushed his under heel), then at the very least he demanded Star Wars or 2001 A Space Odyssey or hell, he’d even settle for Transformers over reality television.

He could’ve sworn he looked over to the window out to the nurse’s station for only a second, and he would’ve sworn up and down he didn’t hear a thing out of place, but when he turned back to the corner screen, he found he wasn’t alone. Every muscle in his body tightened, every hair stood on end, because Tony had read the files and seen the footage, but it was one thing to know the Winter Soldier was a ghost, and another thing to actually experience it.

“Hi,” he said slowly, considering his options. If he was a target, hitting the nurse call wasn’t going to save his ass and it’d only put civilians in danger. If he wasn’t…well, that was intriguing.

The Soldier, Bucky Barnes, was dressed in a poorly fitted jacket that looked second-hand, sweats that had seen a few too many washings, and a baseball cap drawn low over his stubbled face. At Tony’s voice, he started, as though he wasn’t expecting to be seen. His gloved hand raised as though he was reaching for a weapon, but he paused halfway there, staring intently at Tony. His eyes were glacial and arresting, like the whole of the frozen tundra had been packed inside of him over his seventy year captivity.

“Saw the news,” he said, his voice creaking like a rusted gate. “Tony Stark. Iron Man. Heart attack.”

“Minor heart attack. Nothing really. Only to be expected when you’ve had as much heart trauma as I have.” Tony waved his hand nonchalantly, turning his head a little to eye his heart monitor. His heart rate was elevated and he needed to calm it down or the nurses would come running, and that would be disastrous. It was a little hard to do that though, what with the freaking Winter Soldier in the room with him. To distract himself, Tony started doing one of the things he did best: talking. “You know, we’ve got a mutual friend who’s been wanting to see you for a while now.”

Where was Steve? Tony wracked his memory for the Avengers’ schedule. He thought maybe Greece. Maybe Slovenia. Somewhere Balkan. Definitely not the United States.

“I know,” Barnes said, looking away. “He’s stubborn.”

Tony snorted. Understatement of the year.

“Do you want me to get in touch with him?”

“No!” Barnes held out his hands, palms flat, and the gesture of placation looked strange on his thick soldiers, his rough edges. “Please don’t…please don’t tell him you saw me.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at that, but after a moment he nodded. Barnes had his reasons. Tony didn’t quite understand those reasons, but he’d respect them so long as no one was getting hurt.

“So if you don’t want Steve, why are you here?”

“Steve trusts you.”

It seemed like Barnes would go on, would keep talking, but he stalled out, his mouth open and his brow furrowed. After a long and awkward pause in which Tony’s heart rate started to skyrocket again, he prompted, “Yeah?

“I need someone I can trust.” And then, he shed his jacket. Tony bit his lip to keep from gasping. The sleeve of Barnes’ Henley was ripped away on the left, revealing the gleaming metal prosthetic, but Tony could immediately see the problem. Or rather, the many problems. Several plates along the bicep had been ripped away, exposing the black depths of wiring and pneumatics underneath. At the point where his pectoral muscle would’ve joined with the arm but instead puckered around metal, blood was running sluggishly into cotton. There was something black and jagged lodged in his wrist, and his forearm had been dented inward.

“Holy shit,” Tony breathed, staring at the ruined pieces. “What happened? You pick a fight with the Hulk?”

“Something like that,” Barnes murmured, and for a moment Tony thought he might actually crack a smile, but then his frown grew deeper and he touched one of the unharmed spots, just above his elbow joint. “Can you help?”

“I can, but there are some obvious obstacles.”

Barnes glanced up and then looked around the room. “Seventy-six feet to emergency stairwell, three floors to ground level, one-hundred sixty feet to nearest ground-level exit. Hospital security at minimum, likelihood of civilian involvement slim.” He twitched a little and shook his head, pressing his flesh hand to his face for a moment. “Sorry. Sometimes I…what I mean to say is I can get you out of here.”

“That’s sweet of you, really, but I’m here because I need to be here. Bypass surgery does that to you.” Tony yanked down his hospital smock to expose the bandages over his newest scar. “I’ve got a brand new pacemaker and strict orders from the physicians, the Avengers, and my best friends to stay put or there will be Consequences. The physicians I’m not too worried about, but I’d prefer to keep on the Avengers good side. And Pepper will literally stab me with her heel if I check out AMA.”

“Oh,” Barnes said, and he looked down again. For God’s sake the man, the most feared assassin to ever grace Washington D.C., the legendary POW gone MIA, was scuffing his foot like a ten-year old. “I guess I didn’t…um.”

“But once I get the go-ahead to check out, I can help you.”

Barnes grimaced, but nodded slowly. He turned to go out the window, and something in Tony said “no, don’t let him leave, not like this.” So he said quickly, “But if you want to stay and keep me company, I wouldn’t mind. I’d actually be pretty thrilled. I’m going out of my mind with boredom here.”

From over his shoulder, Tony was struck by how very _scared_ Barnes looked, like Tony was the fearsome assassin and not him. But after a moment he turned back and looked around Tony’s hospital room. There was a chair in the corner and a loveseat beneath the window, but for some reason, Barnes chose to sit on the bed beside Tony, maybe so he could keep his back to him when he needed to look away, or maybe just because he was tired.

That did, however, make it obvious to Tony that one of the exposed wires in his arm was sparking.

“Hey, does that, hm…” Barnes was bleeding. Tony groaned and blamed his painkiller regimen for the sluggishness of his mind. “Let’s get you cleaned up at least. Somehow.” Jesus, did Barnes come here straight from a fight? Tony was betting the answer is yes, and a bad one at that. If his arm looked like that, what did the rest of his body look like?

But Tony managed to stumble up from the bed and get his cords and wires and IVs in order to trundle himself to the bathroom. Barnes remained on the bed, looking dazed. Maybe he came over in shock. Maybe he never meant to show his face and desperation drove him to Tony’s bedside. Jesus, Tony was not emotionally equipped to handle a traumatized former Hydra pawn turned man on the run. 

He gathered up a bowl of hot water and a bunch of clean towels, though and came back into the room to find that Barnes had stripped away his shirt. Underneath, the damage is as bad as Tony feared, bruises purpling along his ribs and another cut deep in his right forearm.

Not really thinking about the dangers or the consequences, Tony raised the cloth to Barnes’ chest where the scar tissue bled and started dabbing away the mess. Beneath the dried, smeared blood, he could see the bleeding had almost stopped already, and Tony had to wonder if Barnes’ healing was as enhanced as Steve’s. Maybe. Maybe not.

He glanced up to find Barnes watching him, mouth open and soft, eyes troubled.

“Sorry. Does this hurt. I can…”

“It’s fine,” he said quickly, looking away, but Tony could feel him darting glances back over and over again. Once the space around the scar tissue was clean, Tony moved over the cut. Beneath, it too didn’t looks so bad. Maybe Barnes could heal faster, or maybe the wound had just looked worse when it was covered with gore. Once both wounds were clean, Tony looked around helplessly. He had nothing to bandage it with, but before he could say anything, Barnes was already pulling his shirt back on.

“Hey, hey. Are you sure you want to–”

“It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt too badly.” Barnes was definitely avoiding his eyes, but Tony didn’t think it was anger. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say it was embarrassment.

“Ok. If you say so. But your, uh, your arm is…sparking.”

Barnes glanced over and raised his bicep to inspect it. A flash of pain dashed across his face to be quickly replaced by a hard, ragged expression.

“If you want, I can at least improvise with a pen to make that hurt a little less. Probably. I mean, a cut connection means no nerve transmission which means no–”

“Yes please.”

Tony glanced at Barnes and found himself looking, really looking. The man looked tired underneath his stern, icy exterior. There were circles under his eyes that would’ve looked more in place on Tony’s face, and the lines around his mouth were drawn deep.

“Ok. Could you lay down. I’m just gonna…” He gestured to the chair. It honestly would’ve been easier to work on Barnes sitting up, but he also didn’t want Barnes to keel over on him. He looked too heavy for Tony to lift back into a comfortable position, especially fresh out of surgery.

After a moment, Barnes did, blinking owlishly up at the ceiling. His hat skewed off at a ridiculous angle, half on his head and half off, so that his long hair spilled out onto the pillow.

“You’ll let me know if this hurts too badly?”

Barnes grunted and again Tony could feel his gaze, watching Tony work while pretending he wasn’t watching at all.

“Ok. I’m just gonna disconnect this wire here. It looks like it’s the one causing the sparking. This…I’m working with a pen, so it’s probably going to take a minute. Or five. Right now I’m–” Tony continued on as he carefully worked two ball point pens into Barnes’ arm to get at the connection. He was used to JARVIS taking dictation for him, so it only felt natural to say out loud everything he was doing. But maybe it had that soothing monotone science teacher drone to it, because when next he looked up, Barnes had passed out on the bed, eyes closed and breathing even.

“Huh,” Tony huffed, as he carefully drew the wire out and tied it off to keep it from making contact and sparking. “That’s…unexpected.”

In his sleep, unguarded, Barnes looked even more exhausted. There was something pallid and sickly in his face, and Tony immediately felt for him and wondered when the last time he had a decent meal was.

Then, he was struck by his new conundrum. Barnes needed the sleep, yes, but Tony was also freshly out of surgery, his chest aching, and just as he thought about it, a yawn blindsided him, stretching his jaw until the joint popped. His vision went a little fuzzy around the edges, and after a moment, he shrugged, and crawled into the bed alongside Barnes, because hell if he was losing sleep over this sudden guest. It was his bed, after all. 

He got comfortable surprisingly quickly, given the tight fit between the two of them, but just on the edge of sleep, his eyelids fluttering, Tony was surprised to feel Barnes turn over and rest the metal arm on top of his stomach, just south of his latest soon-to-be scar. It was heavy, but in a grounding way, in a way that made Tony feel like he was sinking into the bed in the nicest way. A moment later, Barnes nose was up against his collarbone, and his breath fluttered across the skin there. That was nice too–-an even rhythm that Tony followed almost instinctively.

With a last little sigh, Tony let sleep pull him under. When he woke six hours later, with the on-duty nurse checking his IV and changing it out, he was alone, but Barnes’ hat was on the chair, waiting like a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com%22) for more fanfiction and nerdery.


End file.
